Philip D'Antoni, who produced The French Connection, turned director himself with this even-darker, hard-driving detective yarn, with spectacularly successful results. The set-pieces, especially the nerve-grinding mid-film sequence in a car-wash which becomes a chamber of doom, are hard, uncompromising and right on target. Roy Scheider contributes a performance of almost frightening power in the pivotal role of the senior detective hunting down a group of loan-sharks: no soft-centred detective this. The sharp, low-key colour photography of Urs Furrer is absolutely right, and the final dialogue between Scheider and Tony Lo Bianco forms a devastating and brilliantly fashioned coda to a very cinematic crime thriller.


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